As Li Chu stepped into the courtyard, he saw a man washing up. He greeted him, "Dongxu, good morning!" This man was none other than Jia Dongxu, the husband of Widow Qin, whose photo had always been hanging on the wall in the "Full of Love in the Courtyard".

Jia Dongxu looked up, smiled, and said to Li Chu, "Good morning, Dr. Li, what's wrong...?"

Li Chu replied, "Just now, an old man asked me to go and check on the old lady in the backyard. He said her legs hurt so much that she couldn't walk, and he wanted me to go and give her an acupuncture."

Upon hearing this, Jia Dongxu quickly replied, "Then you go ahead and take care of Dr. Li. We'll chat later."

Li Chu nodded and walked towards the backyard without saying anything more. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the curtain of Jia Dongxu's house lifted, and a woman came out, holding a baby in her arms. This was Qin Huairu.

To be honest, Li Chu didn't find her particularly beautiful. After all, she had given birth to two children, and her figure was quite average. If it were like those fanfiction novels, where she was incredibly beautiful, everyone would drool over her. That was impossible. These days, there's no such thing as postpartum recovery. A pregnant woman's figure can't compare to that of a young girl, especially her waist, which was practically a barrel. However, her skin was quite fair, and her bust was indeed quite large, probably too big to be encircled by one hand. Her buttocks were also quite large, which, according to the older generation, meant she was good at bearing children.

In the blink of an eye, they arrived at the old lady's house in the backyard. The door was not closed, so Li Chu lifted the curtain and went inside.

The old woman sat on the bed, with an older man's wife and an older woman beside her. The older man sat on a stool by the stove in the middle of the room. Standing next to him was a young man of about twenty-five or twenty-six, He Yuzhu, known as Silly Zhu.

As soon as He Yuzhu saw Li Chu walk in, he hurriedly said, "Dr. Li, please take a look at the old lady. This morning, her legs hurt so much that she couldn't walk."

Li Chu said, "This is an old ailment of the old lady, rheumatic pain. It has been going on for so long that it cannot be cured completely."

The old lady looked at Li Chu and said, "Little Chu, it's alright. They're just making a fuss over nothing. I'm used to it."

Li Chu smiled at the old lady and said, "Come on, old lady, let me take your pulse."

The old lady placed her right hand on the kang table on the bed, and Li Chu sat on the other side to take her pulse. The room fell silent for a moment.

After about a minute, Li Chu withdrew his hand, pressed the old woman's right leg again, and said, "Grandma, it's the same old problem. There's no other way. It's been dragging on for too long. I can only give you an acupuncture and prescribe some medicine to relieve the symptoms for a while." As he spoke, he took out the gold needles, disinfected them with a cotton swab soaked in alcohol, and then had an older woman pull up the old woman's trousers a little to expose her knees. He quickly inserted several needles into her knees and calves, and told the old woman, "Don't move your leg for half an hour."

The old lady chuckled and said, "I know, I know. Little Chu, your technique is getting more and more skillful!"

An older woman chimed in, "Yes, Xiao Chu's needlework is getting faster and faster."

Li Chu smiled and said, "Look at what you're saying. After all these years, if I haven't made any progress, my master would definitely jump up from below and whip me."

The old lady raised her hand and patted Li Chu across the table: "Why does this child talk so carelessly? He mustn't say such things."

Li Chu didn't mind and said to the old man, "Grandpa, do you still have the prescription I wrote last time?"

An old man replied, "It's still there, with me. I'll bring it to you."

Li Chu said, "Okay, bring me that prescription. I'll add two more ingredients and brew it the same way as before." Upon hearing this, the old man turned around and went out to get it.

He Yuzhu then said, "Chu Zi, don't cook lunch. I'll make two dishes, and we can all eat together."

Li Chu replied, "Hey, Zhu Zi, I can't go at noon today. I have to go to my older sister's place later. She's been asking me to go for days, but I haven't had time. Let's do it another day, we can have a drink together sometime."

He Yuzhu smacked his lips and said, "Alright, I'll bring out your good wine another day."

"Okay, no problem. I'll get you some more peanuts; your peanuts are pretty good."

The old lady asked Li Chu, "Little Chu, you're already twenty-four or twenty-five, why aren't you planning to find someone to marry?"

Li Chu stared wide-eyed at the old lady and said, "Grandma, you're really being unfair. I'm out of sleep this morning to give you acupuncture, and all you want is to find someone else to spend my money?"

The old lady didn't know what to say, pointing at Li Chu: "This child, this child..." An older woman also said with a wry smile: "This child is really getting more and more unruly." He Yuzhu was also chuckling.

Li Chu said to He Yuzhu, "Zhuzi, don't be so happy. You're only a year younger than me. Hurry up and let an old man or woman introduce you to someone."

The old lady spoke up from the side, "Little Chu, I'm talking to you, don't interrupt. Sha Zhu's uncle has already been keeping an eye on him."

Li Chu quickly replied, "Oh, Grandma, don't worry about it. My eldest sister asked me to come over today to talk about this."

An older woman asked, "Where are you from, girl? What do you look like? How old are you?" The old lady also stared intently at Li Chu.

Li Chu felt a sudden toothache: "No, I just went there at noon, so I don't know what's going on. Don't worry, Grandma, if it really works, I'll definitely bring it over for you to take a look."

The old lady then smiled and nodded, letting him go.

Just then, an old man came in, holding a piece of paper and handing it to Li Chu: "This is the same one from last time." He then handed her a pen.

Li Chu took the paper and pen, looked at them, added two more ingredients, and handed them to the old man: "Uncle, brew it the same way as before, once a day for seven days."

The old man nodded and said, "Okay, I'll go get the medicine as soon as the pharmacy opens."

The old lady said, "Come on, Xiao Yi, I'll give you the money." The old man waved his hand and said, "Alright, old lady, you put the money away. The medicine Xiao Chu prescribed is cheap, it won't cost much."

The old lady was a lonely elderly woman. The neighborhood committee gave her a monthly ration of 15 jin (7.5 catties) of grain, 5 yuan, and some other receipts. They also had an elderly man and woman help take care of her. The elderly man and woman took good care of her.

After two years of observation, Li Chu concluded that perhaps the fan fiction had altered the story too drastically, or perhaps the original story hadn't even unfolded yet—after all, the TV series started in 1965, and he hadn't watched the complete series, only some edited clips on short video platforms—he felt that the people in the courtyard of this world weren't as ruthlessly corrupted as depicted in the novels. Perhaps it was because Jia Dongxu wasn't dead yet, and these characters hadn't yet evolved into their complete forms?

Like Uncle Yan Bugui, the third uncle in the front yard, he was indeed stingy and calculating, always trying to be clever and take advantage of others. But in those famine-stricken times, you simply couldn't survive without being stingy and calculating. He supported four children and his three wives on his own, earning only 32.7 yuan a month, barely scraping by on the poverty line. Uncle Yan's only mistake was that he squandered the affection he had for his children.

The second uncle in the backyard is a typical bureaucrat, wielding power like a tyrant. Li Chu doesn't like dealing with him. Then there's Xu Damao in the backyard, a projectionist at the steel mill, who took over his father's job. Perhaps because he's spent so much time working in the countryside, he's very slick and slippery. He and He Yuzhu are completely incompatible; they've been fighting since childhood. He's always going against He Yuzhu, and although he can't beat him, he often teases him—the kind of guy who's both weak and loves to play around.

Everyone has their own distinct characteristics. Since the storyline hasn't started yet, Li Chu can't say for sure how much these characters in the courtyard will evolve in the future.